Tips for Planning a Classy but Inexpensive New Year’s Eve Bash

You can easily be a great host or hostess this upcoming holiday party season and also be frugal. All you need are the following key strategies that will help you magically turn a little money into a great New Years party:

Tip #1: Make your own invitations

There is a huge selection of free New Years Eve party invitations available for downloading on the Web. All you have to do is find the message, size and look you prefer, paste the artwork into a Word document or other word processing program and print. If the art was chosen wisely, the end results should exceed your expectations.

Tip #2: Don’t pay for decorations

There are many holiday decorations that can be created at home just using free New Year’s Eve clipart available on the Web. These can be printed on card stock; cut out with scissors, a craft knife or a paper cutter and put in various locations, including being used as napkin holders or menu cards. If you want to get fancy, try using a little glitter glue to make them sparkle.

Tip #3: Set the mood with music

Holiday music is soothing and is a great party mood-setter. Holiday CDs will work, of course, but live music is much more, well, lively. And live music doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive. If you don’t know of musicians who will work free just to get the exposure, check with your local college’s music department. There may be musicians who will work just for the experience and some free food.

Tip #4: Serve impressive food that doesn’t cost a lot

When planning your party, look for holiday recipes that don’t cost a lot to make and also look great on display. A good example would be to serve dip in a bowl made of sourdough bread or purple cabbage, or filling baked puff pastry cups with imitation crab dip you can get at a deli or make yourself or any other filling of your choice.

There are probably other methods you can think of to stretch your holiday entertaining budget. Just be sure to keep your guests’ ultimate experience in the forefront and don’t let saving money make the party seem cheap. If you stay focused on being classy, no one will even know your New Year’s Eve party was done on a shoestring.